The year 2014 “may well be a watershed year for the multistakeholder model of Internet policy making,” and the U.S. plans to continue to continue defending the model while encouraging it to evolve, said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling during a speech Tuesday. Strickling and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy Daniel Sepulveda said at the State of the Net conference that multistakeholder bodies that have governed Internet processes need to evolve to become more inclusive of stakeholders in the developing world.
Jimm Phillips
Jimm Phillips, Associate Editor, covers telecommunications policymaking in Congress for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2012 after stints at the Washington Post and the American Independent News Network. Phillips is a Maryland native who graduated from American University. You can follow him on Twitter: @JLPhillipsDC
Net neutrality advocates said the best way for the FCC to reinstate a nondiscrimination rule for broadband ISPs -- akin to the rule the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit just struck down -- was to reclassify broadband Internet as a Title II service. Reclassification is one of several options the FCC could take to regroup on net neutrality following the D.C. Circuit’s Tuesday ruling (WID Jan 15 p1), though other non-prescriptive measures could also work, the advocates and other industry experts said Friday during a Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee event.
The House Cybersecurity Subcommittee cleared the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act Wednesday, sending HR-3696 on to the full House Homeland Security Committee. The bill, which had the support of both Republican and Democratic committee leaders, would codify the Department of Homeland Security’s existing public-private collaboration on cybersecurity, but would not give the agency new powers. It would also allow new liability protections for companies that deploy anti-terrorism technology to also deploy cybersecurity tech. The subcommittee cleared HR-3696 with multiple amendments, including two that dealt with concerns stemming from recent data breaches at Target and other national retailers.
Top U.S. wireless carriers Verizon Wireless and AT&T told the FCC it should move forward with its original proposal to license the 600 MHz band and AWS-3 spectrum based on Economic Areas, rather than adopt the Competitive Carriers Association’s alternate proposal to license the spectrum based on Partial Economic Areas (PEAs). The PEAs, as proposed by CCA, would essentially be a subdivision of EAs and would be based on EA and Cellular Market Areas (CMA). The FCC had sought public input on the CCA proposal, which also has support from other rural carriers, and comments were posted online Thursday and Friday.
Capitol Hill reaction may be limited, despite criticism AT&T is facing from net neutrality advocates over the introduction Monday of the carrier’s “sponsored data” plan, said industry experts in interviews. Other national carriers are likely monitoring the criticism from advocacy groups and the Hill and may use that to determine when -- and if -- they will introduce similar plans, the experts said. Net neutrality advocates said the plan violates the spirit of net neutrality but question the extent to which the FCC’s Open Internet rules would apply (CD Jan 7 p2). House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., raised some concerns Monday about the AT&T plan, which she said in a statement “puts it in the business of picking winners and losers on the Internet, threatening the open Internet, competition and consumer choice."
The FCC should let network operators decide the best way to mitigate interference on the 3.5 GHz band, said a carrier, high-technology firms and other companies commenting on spectrum access systems for use on the 3550-3650 MHz band. SAS shouldn’t “directly control different aspects of the network,” T-Mobile said Monday (http://bit.ly/1ddo1fJ). Google and Microsoft also filed papers with the FCC on the technical aspects of the SAS in advance of a Jan. 14 workshop being hosted by the Wireless Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology. The FCC has targeted the band for shared commercial use.
The yet-to-be-introduced Cybersecurity Recruitment and Retention Act “aims to give [the Department of Homeland Security] hiring and retention authorities for cybersecurity professionals that are comparable to the ones allowed to the Department of Defense so that DHS can strengthen its workforce and more effectively carry out its cybersecurity mission,” a Senate Homeland Security Committee aide told us. The committee postponed a planned Dec. 18 markup of the bill and has not set a new timeline for action on the measure (CD Jan 6 p2). Committee Chairman Tom Carper, D-Del., and ranking member Tom Coburn, R-Okla., “hope to move a bipartisan measure, including legislation to enhance the ability of DHS to recruit and retain the cyber workforce it needs to protect the department and our nation, in the new year,” the committee aide said.
After Congress ended 2013 without enacting any major legislation to bolster cybersecurity, industry observers told us in interviews they see limited prospects for progress on such bills in 2014. Congress passed two spending bills that included some cybersecurity language, but did not complete consideration of marquee legislation addressing the issue, including the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR-624) and the Cybersecurity Act of 2013 (S-1353).
U.S. civil society groups are in the early stages of deciding how they will participate in important ITU-led communications forums set to occur in 2014, industry experts told us. Federal agencies responsible for formulating the U.S. government’s position on ITU issues are continuing to prepare for the 2014 forums, which will culminate in the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference Oct. 20-Nov. 7 (CD Dec 23 p9).
U.S. officials are continuing to plan for the upcoming World Telecommunication Development Conference, although the ITU hasn’t announced a new locale for the conference. The WTDC, held every four years, sets the agenda and guidelines for the ITU’s Development Sector for the following four years. The WTDC had been set for March 31-April 11 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, but the ITU decided to move the conference because of continuing political instability in the country, an industry observer told us.